Burn, Witch, Burn!

"'Officer,' he says, solemn, 'it was a doll. A little man doll. An' when I say doll I mean a doll. I was walkin

along,' he says, 'gettin' the air. I won't deny I'd had some drinks,' he says, 'but nothin' I couldn't carry. I'm

swishin' along wit' me cane, when I drops it by that bush there,' he says, pointin'. 'I reach down to pick it

up,' he says, 'an' there I see a doll. It's a big doll an' it's all huddled up crouchin', as if somebody dropped

it that way. I reaches over t' pick it up. As I touch it, thedoll jumps as if I hit a spring. It jumps right over

me head,' he says. 'I'm surprised,' he says, 'an' considerably startled, an' I'm crouchin' there lookin' where

the doll was when I feel a hell of a pain in the calf of me leg,' he says, 'like I been stabbed. I jump up, an'

there's this doll wit' a big pin in its hand just ready t' jab me again.'

"'Maybe,' says I to the drunk, 'maybe 'twas a midget you seen?' 'Midget hell!' says he, 'it was a doll! An'

it was jabbin' me wit' a hat-pin. It was about two feet high,' he says, 'wit' blue eyes. It was grinnin' at me

in a way that made me blood run cold. An' while I stood there paralyzed, it jabbed me again. I jumped

on the bench,' he says, 'an' it danced around an' around, an' it jumped up an' jabbed me. An' it jumped

down an' up again an' jabbed me. I thought it meant to kill me, an' I yelled like hell,' says the drunk. 'An'

who wouldn't?' he asks me. 'An' then you come,' he says, 'an' the doll ducked into the bushes there. Fer

God's sake, officer, come wit' me till I can get a taxi an' go home,' he says, 'fer I make no bones tellin'

you I'm scared right down to me gizzard!' says he.

"So I take the drunk by the arm," went on Shevlin, "thinkin', poor lad, what this bootleg booze'll make

you see, but still puzzled about how he got them holes in his legs. We come out to the Drive. The drunk is

still a-shakin' an' I'm a-waitin' to hail a taxi, when all of a sudden he lets out a squeal. 'There it goes!

Look, there it goes!'

"I follow his finger, an' sure enough I see somethin' scuttlin' over the sidewalk an' out on the Drive. The

light's none too good, an' I think it's a cat or maybe a dog. Then I see there's a little coupe drawn up

opposite at the curb. The cat or dog, whatever it is, seems to be makin' fer it. The drunk's still yellin' an'

I'm tryin' to see what it is, when down the Drive hell-fer-leather comes a big car. It hits this thing

kersmack an' never stops. He's out of sight before I can raise me whistle. I think I see the thing wriggle

an' I think, still thinkin' it's a cat or dog, 'I'll put you out of your misery,' an' I run over to it wit' me gun. As

I do so the coupe that's been waitin' shoots off hell-fer-leather too. I get over to what the other car hit,

an' I look at it-"

He slipped the bag off his knees, set it down beside him and untied the top.

"An' this is what it was."

Out of the bag he drew a doll, or what remained of it. The automobile had gone across its middle,

crushing it. One leg was missing; the other hung by a thread. Its clothing was torn and begrimed with the

dirt of the roadway. It was a doll-but uncannily did it give the impression of a mutilated pygmy. Its neck

hung limply over its breast.

McCann stepped over and lifted the doll's head, I stared, and stared…with a prickling of the scalp…with

a slowing of the heart beat…

For the face that looked up at me, blue eyes glaring, was the face of Peters!

And on it, like the thinnest of veils, was the shadow of that demonic exultance I had watched spread over

the face of Peters after death had stilled the pulse of his heart!

CHAPTER VII: THE PETERS DOLL

Shevlin watched me as I stared at the doll. He was satisfied by its effect upon me.

"A hell of a lookin' thing, ain't it?" he asked. "The doctor sees it, McCann. I told you he had brains!" He

jounced the doll down upon his knee, and sat there like a red-faced ventriloquist with a peculiarly

malevolent dummy-certainly it would not have surprised me to have heard the diabolic laughter issue

from its faintly grinning mouth.

"Now, I'll tell you, Dr. Lowell," Shevlin went on. "I stands there lookin' at this doll, an' I picks it up.

'There's more in this than meets the eye, Tim Shevlin,' I says to myself. An' I looks to see what's become

of the drunk. He's standin' where I left him, an' I walk over to him an' he says: 'Was it a doll like I told

you? Hah! I told you it was a doll! Hah! That's him!' he says, gettin' a peck at what I'm carryin'. So I

says to him, 'Young fellow, me lad, there's somethin' wrong here. You're goin' to the station wit' me an'

tell the lootenant what you told me an' show him your legs an' all,' I says. An' the drunk says, 'Fair

enough, but keep that thing on the other side of me.' So we go to the station.

"The lootenant's there an' the sergeant an' a coupla flatties. I marches up an' sticks the doll on the top of

the desk in front of the lootenant.

"'What's this?' he says, grinnin'. 'Another kidnapin'?'